The personal blog of Atticus and Holdon.

Tag Archives: right and wrong

Someone I know sent me this link today. It is a list of 47 children who have perished due to Drone strikes under the Obama administration.

I think this list is meant to be an interesting juxtaposition to the “crying for the children” Obama presented to the public after the tragedy of Newton, Connecticut. Leaving many Americans wondering what makes the Newton County children any more a tragedy than the deaths of 47 innocent brown children over the past few years.

Grey Area

Of course it isn’t that black and white. Some might argue that the end justifies the means as related to the deaths of 47 middle-eastern children. They are casualties of war – a sad consequence of terrorism and radical Islam even. War is dirty and the loss of innocent life inevitable while those children slaughtered in Newton remains completely unjustified and purposeless.

Still – I can’t help wonder why Obama doesn’t occasionally take a step back and express his deep regret for every innocent life lost as result of Drone attacks – especially the children. Especially in a war against “terror” and not against any particular nation.

Doesn’t the Administration owe it to every country to apologize for the death of their citizens as result of our mission to kill a particular individual? Maybe not – I don’t know how this works. What is the etiquette in a war like this? And no doubt a legion of right-wingers would be waiting to pounce and call Obama weak at the first apology uttered.

Reflection

I guess what I’m saying here is that tragedy is everywhere and we should take time to reflect on the cost of war. We should appreciate and mourn the loss of every life – not just those in our own nation.

For myself – I wonder why the death of 22 children in Newton is so much more difficult a pill to swallow than the death of 47 children in some distant land I can’t fully conceptualize? This post goes out to all 69 of the innocent lives lost as result of someone else’s mistakes. A sad reality of the world we live.

Here we are again in the wake of the most tragic mass shooting in U.S. History. 28 victims, 20 of them children, were murdered by a psychopath in the name of nothing, for no reason, and has given none of us one ounce of closure. To call this a tragedy is an understatement. To try to put into words what the parents of these beautiful children must be feeling is impossible.

To imagine those unwrapped Christmas presents laying under the tree on Christmas morning. To think of the parents who have to live with the loss of their child every year – the holidays a constant reminder of what was taken from them. To finally muster the courage to pack your child’s bedroom and say goodbye. When it finally sinks in that your child will not be there on Christmas morning – smiling, excited, innocent – I can’t even imagine.

All these things have come to pass – or will come to pass – but one thing still remains. One conversation: Gun Control.

Gun Control

I’ve covered Gun Control many times. I’ve tried to take a logical approach to the statistics and come to a reasonable conclusion about what it means to be a nation with an armed populous. Now 28 more people have been slain – so what do we do now? What does this mean? Is it the time to open the discussion about Gun Control? Is it time, for once and for all, to do what so many countries have and disarm? No.

By focusing on Guns we are missing the point. We are avoiding the elephant in the room. We aren’t having the right discussions at all. What we need to talk about is us. What’s wrong with our culture, with society, with our psychology? How can we as a nation blame violence on Guns alone without taking a very careful look at ourselves in the mirror? Why are we killing each other, what is happening to us culturally, what is the root cause of this issue?

Culture Health

We are a culture in trouble. We have the highest gun related crime rate of any developed nation on Earth. Why? Is this a gun problem or something deeper? Has TV and music corrupted our young people to such an extent that murder has become ingrain in our psyche to such an extent we resort to violent behavior?

We are in trouble unless something changes. Even our Government is built upon violence. Have no delusions We have the biggest military in World history. The military industrial complex is the largest arms dealer in world history. So how can a Government enforce laws around gun control when they themselves supply all the world with weapons of destruction? Hippocrates.

It just doesn’t fit. A culture of violence is one built from top to bottom and it has to be solved at all levels. Peace has to come from the leadership as well as the populous – is our Government willing to lead by example? No.

This isn’t an anti-government rant – I’m just pointing out that a culture of violence and love for Guns has saturated us. The media, the Government, entertainment, and the people – all engulfed in a lust for violence that we can’t easily detach ourselves from. Pro-gun or anti-gun ask yourself this: What is the real problem? Guns or the system that promotes the idea of violence?

Tighter gun control laws without changing the moral fabric of the people will be more like chaining a rabid dog to a fence post without training him – you can take away the dogs freedom and it may solve a few problems, but he’s still rabid. How many people can you chain, spy on, and control in the name of safety?

Look in the Mirror

I’m not saying these shootings are any of our fault. Not even close. But we have to agree that changing the way we embrace and cheer on violence has to change.

It’s propaganda. We love violence because we have been trained to. So it’s no surprise when a few of us begin to act out the thing they have come to embrace.

Does your 8 year old still find it entertaining to kill another person in a video game? Are you still apathetic about the brown people being killed in the middle east by drone strikes that are eerily similar to the video game that your child loves to play so much? Are you embracing love and humanity or war and murder? Where do your dollars go at the movie theater? Do your actions scream peace?

Pro-gun or Anti-gun I really don’t care as long as we can all agree to do something about ourselves first.

Edit: A friend pointed this article out to me today. A mass shooting eerily similar to the one in Connecticut from back in the late 1920s. People have a very short memory.

President Obama will be our president for the next four years, the House of Representatives is still controlled by a Republican majority, and the Senate is still controlled by a Democrat majority. Nothing has changed since yesterday. This morning I still got out of bed, shut off my alarm, put on my clothes, and went to work.

For now, I’ll rake the leaves at the beginning of my neighborhood when no one else will, I’ll buy a homeless guy a meal and treat him like a person, I’ll offer to fix my neighbor’s front porch when they need help, and I’ll lend my friends a few bucks when times are tight after they’ve been laid off work. In the end, its the people that make a difference, not their Government.

Did you get that?

As a 25 year old man, with several decades left to live, I believe no idea is more important to perpetuate than our sense of responsibility to ourselves and our neighbors. We have to fight for it!

As it stands it seems we as a population have slowly come to rely more and more on Government. Not just the poor, not just as a social safety net, and not just for emergency – but to such an extent we are losing our sense of community.

Ask yourself: “What is my relationship with my community?” and “What do I think when I see someone in need?” Do you think “How can I help?” or do you assume the Government already is?

We text “Red Cross” during a hurricane instead of preparing a meal for our neighbor. We wait for FEMA instead offering water to the thirsty. We assume “they get food-stamps” instead of offering someone a way to feed themselves. Republican or Democrat this is a trending theme everyone must be worried about.

Help yourself, help your neighbor, don’t wait for anyone else to do it.

New research from the NYU School of Law and Stanford Law School details how U.S. drones employ a tactic, known as the “double tap,” that is considered to be a terrorist act by the U.S. government.

The double tap is when a targeted strike site is hit multiple times by hellfire missiles in relatively quick succession, meaning that the second missile often strikes first responders.

The report concludes that double taps by U.S. drones raises “crucial moral and legal concerns. Not only does the practice put into question the extent to which secondary strikes comply with international humanitarian law’s basic rules … but it also potentially violates specific legal protections for medical and humanitarian personnel, and for the wounded. As international law experts have noted, intentional strikes on first responders may constitute war crimes.”

The EU’s latest attempt, it seems, to put us all in line like good little slaves. Compliments of the No Agenda Show.

Using Terrorism to inhibit freedom:

the Internet is also used for illegal purposes, including terrorism, supporting terrorism and encouraging terrorism.

Public and private organisations will comply with national and European laws and regulation. Any action taken to reduce the terrorist use of the internet, will respect fundamental rights and freedoms, including access to the Internet, freedoms of assembly and expression, privacy and data protection.

This was a recent story played on CNN. If you can’t see this as a “media story” that is a total advertisement for Ambien you are an idiot. Start looking at all media this way – it’s all bought and paid for by someone. Popular media is all an advertisement.

Message from the media: Take Ambien two at a time. It’s good for travelers. If you take it correctly you shouldn’t feel groggy. It’s safe. Even Navy Seals take it!

Yesterday was my Dad’s birthday. I didn’t call. I didn’t talk about it. I didn’t remind my wife or say anything to my best friend. I thought about it a few times and let the idea fade from my brain until I was busy doing something else instead.

Maybe I could have been the bigger man and gave him a call. I’m not sure he deserves it though. On the other hand maybe it would have been good for me – evidence that all of my harsh feelings towards him mean nothing. I didn’t call though. I want him to know that the life he has lived isn’t okay and that he doesn’t deserve a phone call from his only son.

My Dad represents almost everything in life that I dislike. He abuses the system, he mentally and physically abused my Mother, was never and still is not a good provider, he is the most selfish man I have ever known, he is a drug addict, and toxic to everyone he’s around. The worst part is that he walks around with a since of entitlement like the world and everyone in it owes him something.

The last Straw
I think the last straw was a couple months back when my Mom attempted suicide. My Dad and me weren’t really on speaking terms then either, but I hadn’t completely abandoned the idea of speaking to him. My Mom called me crying saying that my Dad was seeing someone else and that she “wanted to go be with Jesus.” It was terrible and I was more disgusted than afraid.

After that incident I found out that my Father had been sharing his meth addiction with my Mother. They were both hooked and it made more sense than ever why she was so fucked up. My Father has successfully used drugs and mental abuse as a form of mind control based on insecurity and getting high for the past 26 years on my Mother. No I think its too late for anyone to do anything about it. I somehow escaped.

The Holidays
The holidays are approaching too. This should make avoiding family even more difficult. At this point I completely refuse to speak to my Father or his mother. She has harbored him at a motel he owns where he makes beds and does maintenance for rent. That’s also where he cheats on my Mother and does meth.

The part that most disgust me is that my Grandmother is on this holy trip. She is and always has been “religious” yet she has somehow justified allowing my father to live on her property, have sex with other drug addicts, buy and sell meth, and abandon his responsibilities as a husband. That motel is a compound of irony.

I will not be uncivil – my quiet protest will be my absence. Luckily I have in-laws who are excellent people and I have adopted as my family. That also make my wife happy so it’s a win-win. I will make a small amount of time for my Mother, but her inability to do anything for herself, her mental laziness, and her constant complaints are something I can only deal with in small doses.

Looking ahead
In years to come I am not exactly sure how I will deal with this situation. Part of me says just forgive them and move on. Let them live their shitty lives and let the universe punish them accordingly. It is not my place. The best thing I can do is let it all go and move on.

Another part of me says just never speak to them again. Forget about it completely and move on in a different way. However; honestly I am not sure which method is the right one. If I maintain a relationship with my parents does that set me up for more heartache and trouble? Does it give my parents more opportunity to suck me in and make their problems my own? That is the risk.

Either way this whole thing has taught me the value of being a decent human being and a man of integrity. I am thankful for that.